Cold Call Tip

By Debbie Mayo-Smith

Do you ever have to make cold calls? here is a fabulous tip told to me by Sarah Reilly of ITL, New Plymouth

Most telemarketers, at least initially, work off a script. This script is invariably written by someone who has never actually made a cold phone call to a prospective client. This is obvious from how detached and verbose they are. The trick is to ascertain whether or not the customer meets your sales criteria before they realise you’re a telemarketer. There’s no need to be brisk, but for your sake and theirs get to the point – as an example this one little change moved me from minimum wage to over $40k p.a. commission only while working only 14-17 hours a week.

‘Hello my name is …………. and I’m calling from…………

Have you heard of us before?

We we are…………………………(insert company history – *yawn*) and we’re currently trying to locate mortgage holders in the area. Would you fall into that category?’

Aside from taking forever to find out that they didn’t have a mortgage, thereby rendering them ineligible for the promotion anyway, we were prone to wasting at least 1 hour per shift repeating that opening for teenagers and the elderly, who were obviously not mortgage holders either.

This is the new conversation-launcher:

Hi its Sarah calling from Home-Loan Solutions. We’re just trying to locate mortgage holder’s in your area this evening, would you happen to have a mortgage on the home there?

With the right tone of voice, speaking clearly and not too fast, this gets an excellent response. It lowers the number of ‘Not interested’ straight away because you’ve given them a concise yes or no question.

The conversation is now on your terms. You’ve also removed at least half of the people who say not-interested simply because you sound like a boring and long-winded telemarketer.

If they say no, that’s great – you can cross them off and you only used 10 seconds of your time. If they say yes you have the perfect platform to throw bait from. ’12 years off the mortgage with no extra repayments’. Now, they’re listening.